An extension of the Common Sense Journalism monthly column by Doug Fisher, former broadcaster, newspaper reporter and wire service editor. From new media to old, much of journalism is just plain common sense."In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Unknown (often improperly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire
"Common sense is instinct; enough of it is genius" - George Bernard Shaw

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Some interesting numbers (and more layoffs)

Some interesting numbers out this week.

From the Seeking Alpha blog, the latest Web numbers touted by the Newspaper Association of America -- newspaper Web sites' average unique audience up to 64.4 million for second quarter, 12% over last year. Sounds good, right? Except that the numbers also show almost no increase in the visits per person (8.08 vs 7.82) or aggregate time spent on site (40 minutes each quarter - or barely the time that used to be spent on one good day with the paper). Yes, the argument can be made that if we can figure how to better monetize targeted ads (instead of the ROP banners), that audience should be more valuable. Key word there -- should.

Meanwhile, a new report (PDF) from Integrated Media Measurement holds no joy for TV folks, either. It says up to 20 percent of TV viewing is online, and of that, half of those see online TV as a replacement for broadcast/cable. (Media Post story.) Over at AR&D, however, Terry Heaton does caution that while the report is important, you should take a good look at the methods used.

1 Comments:

Interesting statistics showing the development of mainstream media in US, and their online forays. Here in Singapore, the situation when it comes to professional news is still very much dominated by our two behemoths (Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp). While we do have numerous commentators in social media, the bulk of them do not participate in newsmaking themselves.

Yes, I do coaching and consulting. That is the only shameless commerce you'll get from me here. Go to the bottom of the blog for more details.
Who am I: A longtime print and broadcast reporter/editor/producer and then AP news editor who now professes journalism at the University of South Carolina. (But please note, nothing on this blog represents official university policy or sentiment. If it did, I'd be very concerned.)My point: That journalism is a great occupation, that most journalism is common sense and that our problems arise when we sometimes don't use it.What's covered: My interests center on editing and writing and on editors and the challenges they face in a changing environment. I'm convinced editors are not being trained enough to face these challenges, but that common sense rules the day. I'm heavily involved in Newsplex, the new-media newsroom at the University of South Carolina. But my interests are wide-ranging, so anything, from ethics to some aspects of Web design, is fair game.
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